


The Box

by Fisticuffs



Series: A Fine Line [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Knotting, M/M, Omega!Matt, alpha!Fisk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-15 22:44:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11815707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fisticuffs/pseuds/Fisticuffs
Summary: Matt has a bone to pick. He has a favor to ask.He visits Fisk.





	1. Set It Up

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but if you try reading this without first reading the other fic in the series, you will be hopelessly confused. Your move.
> 
> Conjugal visit sex!!! Don’t come to me looking for flawlessly, logically rationalized motive. I made it work, didn’t I?! It’s just fanfiction. What’s more, it’s fanfiction in a weird universe and between two people who admitted to enjoying sex with each other. If they want to experience it again while hiding behind flimsy excuses, have at.
> 
> One more reminder that this isn’t really canon to Hostage Situation. It’s just an AU where they do. But I did write it to fit perfectly within the universe, so if you want to decide it’s a legit sequel, you go do that and I won’t stop you.
> 
> This was originally supposed to be one chapter, but it got a little longer than anticipated. (I just love writing these two.) So I split it up, and I will have the second chapter uploaded within the next few days. Or whenever I finish writing it. Whichever comes last.

  
Matt did not visit with Fisk. Sentencing the man to prison was a dual solution of getting him off the streets and locking the entire situation away. Matt was supposed to put it behind him, move on.

Forgetting was difficult when he played with, and cared for, and touched, and listened to Fisk’s son every day. Forgetting was impossible when he did stupid things like sending photographs and updates to the prison. Personal accountability made him do it— accountability and the idea that he would want Fisk to do the same for him. Empathy sabotaged his every attempt at progress.

Matt sat. He waited. The entire time, he second guessed his choice.

A loud buzzer went off. The door in the far corner opened. The guard wore boots with a hard sole and a loud step. Fisk had on tennis shoes with a softer, more malleable sole, but his footfalls still boomed with the weight that pressed them down onto the concrete floor. He was escorted to the chair in front of Matt. The guard’s posture and demeanor were wrong. Between the two men, one gave respect and obedience to the other, but it was not the arrangement the judicial system expected of them. Not for the first time, Matt suspected Fisk held power within his prison.

He pulled back the chair with a scrape and sat. Without prompting, the guard left. They were alone.

Matt’s vision was impaired by the glass between them, but it was an inconsequential percentage. He saw fine.

Fisk was content to sit and glare at him, for what else could he be doing with his eyes open and head pointed forward?

Matt did not pick up the receiver until Fisk reached for his. In silence, they waited for the other to speak first.

“I got your letter,” Matt said. “Smart, sending it through Wesley first, I’m guessing. You’re not supposed to be able to contact me. And considerate,” he added, “to have it transcribed into Braille first.”

“You wouldn’t have let someone read it to you.” Fisk knew him well. “And I... wanted to make certain you understood,” he said, “explicitly and with no... room for misinterpretation.” His hand closed. “You should have replied in kind.” He did not anticipate— nor want, apparently— a face to face meeting.

“I started one,” Matt said. “A letter, I had... started writing one. Then I thought maybe it would be better to say it out loud.” He cleared his throat. “I assume this conversation isn’t being recorded.”

“It’s been taken care of,” Fisk assured him. They were free to speak, to confess, to implicate themselves in whichever way they chose.

“Good.” Matt dropped his stressed civility. The straight line of his mouth reared back into a snarl. “You threaten me again, you son of a bitch, and I don’t care if the walls are ten feet thick, I’ll kill you myself.”

“It was an ultimatum.”

“It was a threat!”

“The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen is active again,” Fisk growled. He was not pleased. No, he was angry, and the handle on that anger was weak and crumbling. “Did you think... I would take such news lying down?”

“I don’t give a damn how you take it,” Matt retorted, chuckling at Fisk’s egregious arrogance for thinking his opinion mattered. “It’s my life. You don’t get a say.”

Fisk banged his tight fist upon the counter. Metal vibrated. “This is not what we agreed to!” he yelled. No guards came. No one was there to keep the prisoner under control. They were alone, as Fisk said, as he arranged. It was a frightening concept with Matt’s alarm and intimidation kept at bay by thick glass and his own fighting prowess. “The only reason that I am in here and you are not still sitting in that room or- or dead, is because _you were supposed to be the better choice_! You, Matthew, you were the better parent. You promised me that day,” he spat. “You said to me that you would be a good father.”

“I am!” He was decent.

“What do you call this?!”

“I call it—” Matt’s voice broke. “I call it doing the best I can.”

“You trap me in here and then you... gamble— you gamble!— with your own life,” Fisk said. “What will become of him when you don’t come home?” He did not treat the situation as hypothetical. In his mind, it was inevitable. One day, Matt would face something greater than him. He would die.

“If anything happens to me,” Matt informed, “Daniel goes to Foggy. I wrote the will myself.” It was unfortunate truth when he admitted, “He’ll be a better parent than me anyway, than either of us.”

Fisk detected the self-deprecation but did not comment or console it. He had an offended attitude he was keen on preserving. “Why are you here?” he asked. “I cannot... stop you from putting your life in danger. Do you come to taunt me with your recklessness, my impotence? I may do nothing but issue, as you say, ‘a threat.’ And I will speak this threat as many times as it takes, until one of us bends and follows through. Stop what you are doing, or I will make certain the child is in a stable environment. I will send men while you are out. I will send them when you least expect it. I will threaten this until you are too afraid to leave him. I will _make you_  put my son first.”

“Our son,” Matt corrected, though even that gave Fisk too much possession. His mind was always exaggerating the man’s parental rights. “My son. And I put my life at risk,” he said, “to protect other people’s children. What I do is selfless. What I do is... good. Why I am here...” Matt ran his hand over the sleek metal table. There were a few scratches, but overall it was so nice and smooth, so comforting. “Why I am here,” he repeated, “is so you’ll talk me out of it.”

Fisk was taken aback by the request. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Matt answered, “but you’re the only person I can talk to who knows both sides of me: the father and the Devil. Make me stop.”

“What will stop you?” Fisk asked. Earnestly, he asked for strategy. “What could possibly make you... cease this insanity, if threat of death or a stolen child have no effect?”

“I don’t know.” Matt’s righteousness was a liability, but he could not end it. His mind rationalized the risk so nicely. He was expendable. His life was poor measurement against the many. Conviction made him sick.

“Pregnancy?” Fisk suggested. “Will another child... Will that stop you, to know that you endanger two lives? Is that what will end this, Matthew? Is that what you need?”

Matt did not answer as soon as he should have. No, it should have come immediately, but he was slow in speaking. He was distracted by consideration.

It was a rash suggestion.

“No.” He shook his head. The movement cleared hazy thoughts like a breath of fresh air. “No, that’s... There’s another way, surely.” There were many alternatives before they settled on that one. He could not think of any, but all comparable ideas would seem more credible when held beside pregnancy. “And I can’t resort to it every time.” It was an exhaustible and unsustainable option. He could use it once, maybe twice, before the situation got out of hand.

“Without leverage,” Fisk reiterated, “I can do nothing but ask you to stop— tell you... to stop.”

Matt remembered when every power was Fisk’s. For seven months, he was held at the man’s mercy and whims. Matt tried to defy him at every step, but there were just as many instances where he was forced to concede and play the game. And at the very end, he won because Fisk allowed him to win. There was a time when Matt lacked autonomy, when every facet of his day, every combination of possibility, fell beneath Fisk’s hand. It was simple in an abhorrent way.

“I don’t know what you expect from me.” In prison, Fisk lacked that control. Yet despite his many limitations, Matt did not control him, would never control him. He would never have power over the man, not as he was once reduced so powerlessly. Even now, Matt could do nothing to influence Fisk’s threat, nothing but ask nicely or bow to the ultimatum given him.

“There were times...” Matt spoke with all the halting reluctance of a man confessing to a crime. “Sometimes when we were... When we... You’d tell me things to do, orders, and I wanted to do them. I did. I almost did.”

“You never did,” Fisk stated. Matt’s past defiance crept into the tones of Fisk’s voice in the present moment. It was exhaustion against Matt’s fight, against his devotion to always make matters more difficult.

“I wanted to,” Matt repeated. “Even when what you said was the opposite of what I was thinking, I wanted to obey you.” Saying those words should have brought on so much disgust it inflicted nausea. Matt’s stomach was calm.

“Biological impulse.” Fisk made excuses on his behalf, but Matt was not in a mood to shamefully explain it away. “You were in heat.”

“I wanted to obey you when we disagreed,” he pressed. “Maybe if we were already on the same page, maybe if you tell me to do something I _want_  to do...” Matt understood every implication and consequence of what he was suggesting. He knew that understanding was dawning on Fisk. “Maybe I’ll do it.”

“You were in heat,” Fisk said again. “That is why you felt obligated to obey. It’s biology, Matthew, brain chemistry. It cannot be repeated out from under certain circumstances. It cannot affect you once we’ve finished. You would leave sated and obedient— perhaps. You would change your mind again after it cleared.”

“It could last,” Matt feebly defied. “It could last just long enough.”

“You should leave here,” Fisk instructed, “and reconsider your options.”

“Will you reconsider your threat?” Matt replied.

Fisk did not lie to him. “No.” Matt would stop being the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen or Fisk would take away their son. There was no compromise, no third option.

“Then,” Matt decided, “I’ll start the paperwork.”

“Are you so weak,” Fisk questioned, derided, “that you cannot make the decision on your own?” He was disappointed. “You are not the man I remember.”

“I’m who I always was,” Matt disagreed. “That’s the problem. We were always two men with a shared opinion that stretched in different directions.” It was the same dichotomy with new details. “I’m too determined, Fisk.” That was how he considered it. “But you... tore me apart... before. I saw your side. My own was weaker.” Fisk once dismantled Matt’s black and white conviction. He gave him a new priority, a son. It took Matt a year to return from that changed outlook. Within a cage and beneath Fisk was the place it last happened. Matt dared to think he could recreate it. “I’d like to try.”

Fisk considered every motivation and effect. He was a man who thought very much, sometimes too much. His mind did not quiet. “Is your suggestion as... transparent as you speak it?” When sinful action preceded decision, Fisk wondered how Matt stomached the very mention of a deed he should not want.

“You know there are no secrets between us.” The ones they attempted did not thrive, not even behind brick walls. Perhaps they would never escape one another. Fisk knew all of Matt’s secrets like no one else. It was its own style of tether.

“Is this only for Daniel?” Fisk asked outright. He abandoned vague implications. “Are you... singularly motivated?”

Matt avoided answer by rephrasing the question. “When you agree,” he said without doubt to the inevitable, “will it only be for Daniel?”

They were in a stalemate, each refusing to confirm what the other knew to be true.

“Sometimes,” Matt said, “an act can serve two purposes. They don’t have to be equal. This one isn’t. There is a purpose, a motive.” That much was true. “But there’s a, uh... an effect, a result. It’s incidental.” Sex, the word they would not say, was not powerful enough incentive to lead them anywhere. It was not something so detestable it dissuaded them. “It’s a bonus, Fisk.” Matt would not pretend otherwise. With Fisk, he could always be honest. He was allowed to be honest. He wanted to be. “Nothing more.” That was a lie or the truth, and the only reason Matt could tell it was because not even he was sure which it was.

“‘A bonus,’” Fisk repeated. He considered the assessment and agreed. “Yes... or a consequence.” It was a bad idea and he would not treat it any other way. Neither would Matt.

“We’ll go our separate ways when it’s done,” he said, “just like before.” By law, they could not remain near each other for any extended length of time. “We won’t have to talk about it.” They would think about it, driving themselves mad with every implication, but they would not have to talk about it— to anyone.

Fisk’s fingers thrummed up and down the receiver in his hand, a nervous twitch. He pondered his answer in a proposal that had only one outcome. After all, he did not want to take the child from Matt. It was his ultimatum, not his preference. If Matt needed assistance to make his decision, Fisk would help him get there. “I’ll set it up,” he said.

“No.” Matt shook his head. “We’ll go through the right channels.” He knew Fisk had some level of power over the prison, but if he were going to do something so ill-advised as putting himself in a room with his former enemy and captor, he wanted it done right. Matt wanted records of his visit, his whereabouts, damning as they could one day be. Only then would he feel some modicum of safety. In secrecy, he could disappear.

“Very well.” As with most matters concerning their son, Fisk left final say for Matt. “We’ll do it your way.” He meant that very generally. Matt’s entire plan was a long stretch from reason, but Fisk would indulge him before enacting his own. “If it’s what you want.” The obliging sentence felt like a taunt, and Matt almost took it that way. But the truth was he knew better. Being an omega, exhibiting any behavioral expectations therein, was not something with which Fisk would mock him. Because of his mother, Fisk respected omegas. Matt did not forget.

“It’s the best plan I have.” Matt was desperate, and he hoped the lengths he resorted to conveyed that. “It’s not something I can make myself do alone.”

When alone, Matt made the wrong right choice. He did it before he met Fisk. He repeated it after the birth of their son. Sometimes Daniel slept and the apartment was quiet. That was when cries for help ran to Matt on sound waves, and no hand or pillow could cover his ears enough to stop them. His situation was extraordinary, but Matt could not help thinking that perhaps this was one of the reasons there were two parents. In society’s expected dynamic, he would live with Daniel’s father and the apartment would be quiet much less often. However, Matt lived with the silence and every unconventional consequence to which his choices led him. In life, in fatherhood, in bed, he was alone. But some things could not be done alone. He needed a persuasive hand, one which came from someone who shared that fierce love for his son.

“I trust you have the privilege.” Conjugal visits were a reward for well-behaved inmates, not a right.

“I am a... model prisoner,” Fisk confirmed. Of course he was— on paper. He wanted to get out early, as soon as that first parole hearing was scheduled.

“I’ll set it up.”

“I’ll be here,” Fisk replied. They were his final words, spoken out of that obligatory ire he carried towards incarceration.

Fisk hung up his receiver. Matt did the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... who’s ready for The Defenders? Please put more Matt Murdock in my life.


	2. Locked In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I received a pleasantly validating feeling watching the second episode of The Defenders. Matt wanting to stop being Daredevil but unable to control himself completely, needing some help. Afraid that help wouldn’t work but trying anyway because he couldn’t think of anything better. Huh. Sounds familiar. Thank you again, canon. Always making my plots sound moderately feasible.
> 
> Sorry it took me longer than I said to finish this second chapter. I had more to say than I thought. I could let these two talk for hours, I swear. The good news is there’s a lot here for you to read. Like 12,000 words. So buckle up. Enjoy!

There was an application process. It took three weeks for approval. It was three weeks in which Matt gave his plan a second— then third— thought, flipping back and forth. It was three weeks in which Matt tried to ignore cries for help but caved again and again. With extremely short notice, he dropped Daniel off with Foggy or Karen or even Fran across the hall. It was three weeks in which Matt suspected every person who loitered around his apartment. Did they work for Fisk? Were they keeping tabs on him? Were they there to kidnap Daniel? Were they waiting for Fisk’s signal?

It was a long three weeks.

The application went through without opposition. Fisk was a model prisoner— on paper.

Matt left Daniel with Karen for a few hours. He was vague as could be about where he was going, what he was doing.

He took a taxi and exchanged Hell’s Kitchen for a prison. It was a very long ride with nothing to do but think, and yet Matt still did not change his mind.

The guards knew why Fisk was incarcerated. They knew who Matt was. Of course they did. He had to sign a myriad of paperwork, upon which he left his mark where they guided his pen. He wrote his name again and again, absolving any third party from legal action should physical assault befall him.

They judged Matt, silently and with looks they thought he could not see. He did not care. There were higher priorities: his son, the purpose of his visit, the idea that Fisk’s lawyer could manipulate it all in an appeal.

When they took Matt to the room and left him, Fisk was already there. The door closed behind him. He heard a lock. There was no going back unless he made an embarrassing fool of himself, banging and begging to be let out. Matt took a breath for courage and observed his surroundings.

The room was minimal in every way, in compliance with its purpose. One occupant besides himself— Fisk. One bed, one table, two chairs, two overhead lights, no windows. Matt felt like an inmate being there.

Fisk said nothing, not yet. Neither did Matt. Fisk sat in one of the chairs. Matt stood.

There were condoms on the table. The knowledge of their presence combined with the smell— the smell— betrayed what the room was so often used for. It was deplorable, but a hotel was beyond them, at world’s end for all the access they had to one. Fisk’s pull only stretched so far. The sheets were clean.

Matt was oddly nervous. Fisk was too, judging by the sound of his heart. Thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump. For one year they had not been in the same room, not without walls or lawyers between them.

“You gonna kill me?” Matt asked. It was an extreme question, but he needed an answer before he took another step.

Fisk did not take offense. “No,” he simply said. “No, that would be... counterproductive... contradictory.”

“Right, yeah.” Matt moved forward. “Oh,” he said, breaking the ice, “I brought, uh... His first birthday was a couple weeks ago. We had it in the park. I brought...” He patted his pants pocket. “I brought pictures.” He took them out. “The guards almost didn’t let me in with these. They did take my cane actually, not that... I need it.” He was no longer accustomed to speaking so freely with someone who knew his secret.

Matt stepped closer and held the pictures out. After a moment, Fisk took them. He flipped through. The first cycle was very fast. Fisk took every picture in as quickly as possible. He stopped and studied them on the second rotation.

“Tell me which one you’re on,” Matt said to him, “and I’ll try to describe what was happening when the picture was taken.” He sat in the second chair.

Fisk flipped back to the beginning. “Balancing,” he said. “He’s- He’s walking on a concrete border around the grass a few... inches off the ground. I believe he’s holding your hand.”

“He’s gotten pretty good at walking,” Matt said. “He still falls down sometimes, but he always gets up. He always gets back up on his feet.” Matt smiled.

“A brightly colored table,” Fisk described, “with balloons, a cake.”

“What color are they?” Matt did not ask it on the day of the party. He did not want everyone to pity him. Fisk would not.

“The table has a... blue tablecloth,” he answered, “very vibrant. There are blue balloons, and green, red.”

“Foggy picked it all out,” Matt said, “so I really had no idea.” He had not been able to picture the event in color. “Karen actually made that cake. I think there’s a better picture of it.”

“Yes.” Fisk flipped to the indicated photo. He did not care for decorated cakes, however. His son was absent and so he skipped ahead. “Back at your apartment,” Fisk told him. He remembered it from the one fateful day he was inside.

“That was after,” Matt said. “I think I may have gotten them out of order. It’s hard to tell. Uh, yes, we went back home after. I let him open your gift then.” He chuckled. “Your _gifts_. It was a lot, even more than I thought you’d send.”

“You let him keep them?” Fisk asked. He recalled Matt’s stance on purchases bought with his blood money. He surely sent the gifts knowing they would be turned away or given away.

“Uh, some,” Matt said. He exhaled. “It was a lot. He doesn’t really need that much, and I don’t have the space for it.” Matt had a nice sized apartment for New York, but the floor was constantly shrinking. Ever since he had a kid, his inventory more than doubled. “I don’t know why I let him keep them,” he said. “I suppose I was... letting your gifts be there when you couldn’t be.” He tapped his fingers across his knee. “I don’t feel guilty.” It was the truth, and he had to add it.

“I am... aware,” Fisk said. Matt sent him to prison on purpose, and it was not the sort of action that carried regret. The choice was made.

“For all the good it did,” Matt muttered. Fisk’s organization was crippled but not ruined. All he ever needed was a secure line to call Wesley and an order to give. Matt had yet to take the other man down. And even then, Fisk was not the only player in town.

Matt’s thoughts were clear and legible. Fisk did not want him lingering on righteousness. Matt’s duty was what they were attempting to subdue. “He has... cake,” Fisk said of a photograph, returning the subject to their son and what really mattered, “and ice cream over most of his face.” The diversion was obvious and simple, but effective.

“I was told it looked cute,” Matt grinned. “Of course, me, all I know is I’m the one who had to clean him up afterward.”

“Is it difficult?” Fisk asked. “You can’t see him. I wonder if... Is that difficult for you?”

“Yeah,” Matt honestly answered. “I get by as well as other people— better than them a lot of the time. That doesn’t change the fact that... some things never come into focus the same. I used to not care. I mostly... I didn’t care. But I’d love to see the sky again. I’d like to look at myself in the mirror. I want... a million other sights. But I know if I had my sight back for just... one minute— just one minute— I’d spend every second looking at him.” Matt closed his eyes. His breathing was consistent. “Don’t doubt that I love him, Fi... Wilson.” Intimacy bade him switch to first names. “The truth is I’m just not a good father. I’m a hero who can’t stop. Where can a child fit in with all of that?”

“You give it up,” Fisk stated. “Then he will fit very well... very- very well.”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Matt said. “No one knows. They can’t even comprehend. I hear them: the cries for help, the gunshots, the murder, the sirens. How could I... possibly ignore that?”

“You wait,” Fisk answered. “You keep your head down. You do as everyone in this city does: you live and toil for your own advantage. You become selfish, Matthew... and you trust in me to change Hell’s Kitchen.”

Matt laughed once, under his breath. “I don’t trust you, Wilson, and I don’t see your vision.”

“It is my understanding,” Fisk replied, “the understanding you have brought... You want me to tell you what to do.” It was true. Matt came to surrender his autonomy, to give it away to this man.

“We have an hour.” Already, they had talked away too much of it. Matt was not impatient but he wanted to start.

“I don’t know how to proceed,” Fisk admitted. “I’m unsure of what it is you truly like and... how you like it.”

“It wasn’t all lies and manipulations,” Matt said.

“But some of it was.”

“Yes.”

“Most of it?”

“Sometimes.”

“Did you like it when I was harsh?”

“Sometimes.”

“Gentle?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I be gentle with you now... Matthew?” he asked. “Should I kiss you, hold you, lavish you?”

Matt’s eyes fluttered closed with a shuddering motion. His chest filled and his shoulders rose with deep breath. “Please. Please, Wilson.”

“Come here,” he called.

Matt gripped the arms of his chair and let go. He stood on feet that were not steady. He walked to Fisk— one, two, three steps. Matt stood in front of the man, questioning every action that led him there.

“Come here,” Fisk said again.

Matt picked his foot from the floor, guessing at the closer contact Fisk wanted. He bent his leg and tucked it in beside Fisk’s. His other leg followed suit. He sat in Fisk’s lap.

Large hands twitched. They hesitated beside Matt’s shoulders without touching. Those fingers wanted to wrap around his neck and squeeze. Instead, they stroked down his sides and rested on his hips.

Kissing was in no way necessary. They wanted to.

Matt dipped forward and stopped. Between them was a line. They could put an end to their lunacy all the way up until that line was crossed. He put his hands on Fisk’s arms and dragged them up over the hem of short sleeves. He braced himself on Fisk’s shoulders, using that anchor as he leaned down.

They kissed and it was shy. It was not bashful or timid, no. They were hesitant and reserved. The kiss was chaste. It was the automated action of lips pressing against lips and nothing else. There was nothing else. Was that fire they once had gone, withered under cold time and waged wars?

Fisk felt it, too. He attempted to pull away and end the farce.

“No,” Matt denied. What they committed to was important, not personal pleasure. He pushed against Fisk. He moved his hands to the back of the man’s neck and held him there. Fisk met his fervor and doubled it. The kiss became more rough. Their lips pushed hard against one another and were shoved into and scraped by their teeth. This was them, they remembered. They were not the standards they found in another kiss with another person. They were not sweet. They were not awkward. They were passionate. They were near violence most of the time and within it sometimes.

Fisk moved his hands up and groped at Matt’s back. He dug his fingers into his shirt and squeezed, gathering any slack in his fists and pulling the fabric tight across Matt’s chest. The shirt would have such telling wrinkles later, and Matt did not care. Oh, he did not care. He opened his mouth for a deeper kiss. Fisk reciprocated. It was wet and hot and straight out of memory. The grip on Matt’s shirt tightened and then released from one hand. Fisk moved it to the back of Matt’s neck. It was such a hard, firm grip. Matt did not want to pull apart but knew even if he changed his mind, it was not an option. The man was too strong to be defied.

There was something so seductively dangerous about being intimate with Wilson Fisk. It was not like before. Matt had no safety net. He was not pregnant as a form of protection, and perhaps the only thing that kept him from harm now was Fisk’s knowledge that damage or death would extend his prison sentence or cripple any chance at parole. Maybe he kept his touch nonviolent because he did not want to hurt Matt. “Want” was such a delicate and contradictory balance. Fisk wanted to hurt him. Fisk did not want to hurt him. Walking that line, Matt felt a thrill, the sort of thrill he only encountered when he put on a mask.

Literally and figuratively, Matt put himself in Fisk’s hands. It stole any sense of control. It put Matt in a cell like he never left. It felt like falling. It felt like being held.

Fisk eased his grip and Matt pulled back to catch his breath. He panted against the man’s shoulder. Fisk exhaled warm breath onto his neck.

Matt said what he knew he absolutely should not. “I missed this,” he whispered. The second and third syllables whistled between his tongue and teeth. No one made him feel like he did with Fisk. No one came close except Elektra.

Fisk did not reply or reciprocate and Matt felt foolish. Then, at the end of an agonizingly long ten seconds, he uttered, “Yes,” in Matt’s ear.

To each other, they were a drug— seductive, addictive, unhealthy, and harmful. They relapsed.

The hand on the back of Matt’s neck pulled him to sit up straight. “Take these off,” Fisk ordered, and he tapped Matt’s glasses with his index finger. “Remove them.” They got in the way of kissing. They got in the way of Fisk seeing his eyes, his vacant eyes. Obediently, Matt took off his glasses. He folded them and placed them on the table. When he moved back in for a kiss, Fisk grabbed him with a hand on either side of his face. His grip was a vise. He held Matt there. “Open them,” he said, “please.” Matt opened his eyes for Fisk. He stared right at him, through him. Fisk sighed in relief or contentment. “Just... like I remember.” Matt was very changed since their last time together. His stomach was flat. His hair was short. His personality was more honest and less manipulative. Fisk saw none of that. He looked into Matt’s dead eyes and to him, it was a year ago, with no unpleasantness in between.

Matt wore a casual dress shirt and pair of jeans to the prison. He was not sure of the dress code for a conjugal visit but wanting comfort and as few layers as possible, that was where he landed. Fisk kissed him deeply, passionately, overwhelmingly distractive, and while he did, those strong fingers worked down the buttons of Matt’s shirt. As soon as the first few separated, he moved his lips to Matt’s neck. Low down, around the muscle leading to his shoulder, Fisk kissed. He bit.

“Ah,” Matt sighed in a whimpering exhale. “Ah... Mmm.” His fingers scrambled for better support and gathered the material over Fisk’s chest into his fists. “Mm, Wilson.” The attention was so nice. Matt did not care when Fisk bit harder, did not care when he sucked the skin into his mouth, stressing and breaking blood vessels. It would leave a mark, something for Matt to remember when he left. That was the point: tangible proof of his submission. He would feel the sting long after it was gone, but in the meantime, Matt would have to fasten every button of his shirt on the way out and at work.

Matt moved his hands inward and began to pop open the buttons of Fisk’s prison jumpsuit. The fabric was cheap and rough and Matt wanted it gone. Underneath was a cotton shirt he favored no better. Before he could suggest they move to the bed and get rid of everything, Fisk stood. He kept Matt in his capable arms and carried him.

How pathetically Matt missed Fisk’s strength. How excited he became when moved around by it and dropped onto the bed. Fisk was so much stronger than him, than any man, and once he knelt over Matt, it was over. There would be no fighting because Fisk would win. He won at close, confining combat every time. He was so strong, so amazingly strong.

“Wilson,” Matt breathed as the man laid upon him, pushing his large body down, trapping Matt between him and the mattress. Fisk moved against him, a slow, weighted thrust through clothing. “Just like that.” It was what Matt needed, what he missed. “Just like that.” He put his arms around Fisk’s neck and pulled him closer. As they kissed, Matt rubbed all over that smoothly shaven head. There was no stubble to be felt— not even by his sensitive fingertips— and he would not be surprised to learn Fisk shaved just that morning, for him, knowing how he enjoyed fingering the hairless skin. This was exactly how Matt wanted it. “Facing,” he said. “Let’s do it facing each other. I want... I want you to look at me.” Matt could not explain his newfound enthusiasm for the position, nor could he contemplate the pleasure he took from Fisk’s searing gaze. He liked to be watched now. He liked to touch during. He liked to have his back pressed into the mattress, to lay there, holding on as Fisk took care of him.

“Of course,” Fisk agreed, obliging him as if the want were not mutual. “Yes, of course, Matthew.” He kissed Matt and continued removing his shirt in the scant space between them. He opened the button on Matt’s pants and undid the zipper so he could withdraw the tucked in material. The last buttons fell apart under his fingers and exposed Matt’s entire chest and stomach, all the way down to the boxers that peeked through the opening of his jeans. “Lift up,” Fisk commanded, and Matt raised his hips from the bed so the man could pull down his pants. He left the underwear, preserving that cover of modesty for a moment. Fisk pulled Matt’s jeans down his legs and took his socks and shoes off with them.

Matt could imagine how alluring he looked in that moment, spread out in bed with messy hair, dressed down to his boxers and a shirt that laid open, exposing a pale chest that heaved deep breaths. Fisk was certainly taken by it. He wasted no time in descending upon Matt once more. He kissed him and pressed hard against him. Matt felt the unpleasant rub of being confined between two bodies of grating cotton. He opened more buttons on Fisk’s jumpsuit and pushed it down the man’s shoulders. Fisk stopped touching him long enough to take the fabric off his arms and let it fall down his back, settle around his waist. He stopped kissing Matt long enough to rear back and remove his undershirt. Then there was only soft skin and hair against Matt’s chest. He enjoyed it.

Fisk moved from Matt’s lips down to his neck. He nipped at skin and worked over his collarbone. Matt kept a tight grip on the man’s shoulder or on the back of his head. Fisk went further down. He put his lips— then teeth and tongue— on Matt’s nipple. He flicked at the sensitive skin and Matt felt the bump of every taste bud on his tongue.

But he did not want intimacy. “You don’t have to—”

“You’re tense,” Fisk stated, “and you are... not aroused.” Matt lacking an erection was hardly a deal breaker, but the usual correlation that went with it in omegas was to also be dry. And he was, which would be painful if they persisted. “I am not... going to harm you,” Fisk reassured. The option of it was what stressed Matt.

“I know. I keep trying to tell myself that,” he said. “I keep trying.”

“Relax, Matthew.” It was a simple command but a difficult feat. They had sex often enough before, but Matt was always in heat then. He was always willing and ready. That was a different mind and a different time. They could not easily return to it. “Relax.” Fisk kissed over his chest. “Relax.” They were such quiet words, droning on in repetition until they became hypnotic. “Relax.”

“We never had to worry about this before,” Matt attempted to joke.

“No.”

“I needed you... then.” Teeth scraped his breast, mouthing over bites of flesh too firm to be pulled between them. Fisk nipped all over his skin. It felt good. The attention, the stimulation felt good.

“You need me now.” Soft words rumbled against the charged beating of his heart. “You need me.”

“Ye... es,” Matt moaned. “Yes, Wilson, I need you.” He did. He needed Fisk’s help to dismantle his recklessness. But there was something more to it than that. It was the aforementioned side effect of which they spoke. “I wa...” A teasing, anticipatory hand rested on the tender skin of his inner thigh. “I want you.” What a damning secret to confess. What comfort in saying it to the one person who would never judge.

Fisk raised his hand and slipped his finger into the waist of Matt’s boxers. He began pulling them over his hips. He believed Matt’s claim of desire. “I want you.” He believed it because he shared it. Insanity conjoined with insanity. “I want you, Matthew,” he murmured. “I want you here, beneath me, needing me, begging... for me.” His fingers dragged Matt’s underwear down, taking them. Matt lifted up and let them go. He laid beneath Fisk in only his open shirt. When Fisk pulled away to remove the rest of his jumpsuit, Matt threw away that stifling shirt of his, tossing it in the direction of a chair. Then they were bare, two bodies with nothing between them and sex but the dwindling, dying clock. “You are... You are so beautiful,” Fisk spoke against his neck. He inhaled. “I want you.”

Matt dug his fingers into the man’s back. He scratched. Teeth bit into his shoulder and he gasped. “Ah... Mm. Then do it,” he said. “Prove it. Show... me.” Matt was ready for him. His cock was as hard as the heavy, wanting one resting against his hip. He could feel a beginning wetness below. “Do it.”

Fisk’s mouth withdrew and was immediately replaced by his hand. Fingers formed a fist and squeezed around his neck. Matt remembered danger. He remembered the vulnerability of his situation. “You,” Fisk commanded, “do not... tell me what to do.” Matt clawed at the hand stealing his air. It tightened. “Do you understand?” Matt could not speak. He could not nod his head. “Blink,” Fisk told him. “Blink if we understand one another.” Matt did as instructed. He gave away any and all control. He blinked. “Good.” Fisk opened his hand and Matt inhaled. He coughed all the way down to his chest.

“Bastard,” Matt cursed in a strained, hoarse voice. He coughed. A wrap of bruises would be difficult to hide or explain. It would peek around his shirt collar. He breathed. He coughed. “Alpha bastard.” They both knew he had little ground upon which to complain. Fisk gave him what he wanted by taking what he had: power.

He laid over him, forcing Matt back down, and kissed. Still angry, still catching his breath, Matt fought him several seconds. He gave in. The kiss was hot. It was fierce, spurred and ignited by violence. Their relationship had the same duplicity as Fisk’s personality, kind and gentle or brute force. Matt willingly subjected himself to fleeting whims and walked the line with Fisk. He never forgave the man, but he could put momentary disputes behind him in an instant. That was a trait they shared and exercised towards one another. It was self-destructive instinct. It was their nature. It was a weakness.

Matt pulled back. In the small space he had, he raised a hand and slapped Fisk on the side of the face. His fingers and his palm tingled. The friction made Fisk’s cheek warm. There was no retaliation. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me,” he reminded. How quickly they forgot. How quickly true desire overcame rushed promises.

“And are you hurt?”

Reluctantly, Matt admitted, “No.” No one else would ever do that to him. No one else would ever see him as anything more than delicate. Fisk knew his limits, Fisk and no one else. Matt had experienced far worse pains. The one of Fisk choking him, asserting his dominance, was temporary, worn out already.

“It won’t happen again,” Fisk said, giving a new promise. “But if you seek to command me,” he continued, “if you... mistake the purpose of all of this... you waste my time.” He spoke, always, as if his time were precious, even in prison. Matt was only ever an imposition.

“Okay,” Matt agreed. He surrendered in the most vague of terms. He gave Fisk permission for orders he waited to hear.

They kissed. Fisk’s fingers walked down Matt’s chest and over his thigh. A strong hand grabbed his leg and raised it, pushing his knee up towards his abdomen, giving access. “Keep it there,” Fisk instructed, speaking against his lips. Matt positioned his leg and pushed the heel of his foot into Fisk’s upper back for leverage. Those thick fingers went down his thigh, down to his ass. He pulled on Matt’s rim and a leaking slick wet his molesting fingers. He smeared it across firm muscles, pulled tight from Matt’s bent leg. “You’re ready for me now,” he kissed, “aren’t you?”

Matt sighed, waiting. “Yes.” He was ready for it, ready to be fucked, and he was past caring how that depraved request should have made him feel. “Yes, Wilson.” He did not tell the man to get on with it again. He did not tell Fisk what to do. He waited on a singular patience that ruled them both.

Two fingers went in at once, something Fisk knew he could handle. Matt still gasped in surprise.

“Ah... ah...” Fisk pushed them further in. “Mmm... Hm, yes.” It felt amazing to let someone else finger him. The unknown was exhilarating. “That’s good. Keep— hah— keep going.” Fisk’s fingers were longer than Matt’s own, thicker. His angle was better. His priorities were preparation and pleasure. His fingertips dragged along Matt’s insides, curling and stroking until stimulation made him jump. “Ah!” Matt practically screamed. “Ah, Wilson... Hmm, yes.” It was good. They had not participated in any foreplay since the first time they slept together and it was good. Matt almost did not want to interrupt him. “I pre— Oh, that’s... hmm.” Fisk smirked. He certainly had Matt’s number. “I prepped... some last night,” Matt finally got out. “I’m ready for you, Wilson. I’m ready for you.”

“Are you sure?” Fisk’s words were heat and hesitation. His breath was warm vapor all the way between them until it broke on Matt’s skin.

“Yeah.” Matt nodded. “Go on.” Not wanting his permission to be mistaken for another order, he quickly added, “Please.” He asked for it. He asked for his enemy to screw him. It was nowhere near his most humiliating instance of begging and yet it remained a contender. “Please.” His voice was level and decisive. Matt knew what he wanted.

Fisk kissed him. He continued working Matt’s ass with his fingers, pumping them in and out, spreading them. Matt clenched his hands around the firm, hard muscle of Fisk’s arms. His heel pawed at and dug into his back, twitching and kicking with every extra effort. Fisk gradually removed his fingers but kept his lips on Matt’s, maintaining that level of intimacy, reminding of impending sex.

“Condom,” Matt insisted between rough kisses, before they took that last step. They had never used a condom between them so it was an easy thing to forget. However, Matt was adamant about no more children, not right then.

It was torture when Fisk’s body left him. Cool air set upon Matt like flooding water, suffocating him with its cruelty and isolation. The table was close enough that Fisk did not have to get out of bed, but he did have to reach. Matt sighed when he grabbed one.

Fisk tore open the condom and rolled it down his cock and dormant, awakening knot. Matt missed that knot. Against every healthy instinct, he still sometimes thought about it while masturbating. He remembered it when fingering himself: the pressure, the satisfaction. So many times, Fisk’s knot was his only means of climax. He came on it more times than could be counted or outnumbered by other partners— other partners combined. That fixation, his dependence, was difficult to purge, especially when he made no conscious efforts to forget and used every attempt to remember.

Hesitation waxed and waned. The final step felt more like a plunge, an unrecoverable action that went one way. Fisk looked down at him with fading courage. Heat drained from his face. That steady, comforting heartbeat was erratic with apprehension. It was a big step, and they were both mature enough, wise enough to acknowledge that.

Matt put his hands over the curve of Fisk’s shoulders. Gently, he eased the man’s body down, pulling like a suggestion. And was it not such an alluring invitation?

They kissed. Fisk held either side of Matt’s head. He ran his fingers through short hair, hair that was so much longer the last time he put his hands in it. He pulled on that hair. He twisted it around his fingers and drew back Matt’s head, breaking the kiss and presenting the pale, delicate skin of his neck. Matt was exposed and defenseless. The most vulnerable, fatal part of his body was open, presented to his enemy. Fisk put his teeth on Matt’s neck without biting, without leaving a mark so high up. The skin vibrated within that enclosing hold when Matt groaned.

Fisk was inside of him.

“Oh,” he moaned, “ah... mmm.” He had no words yet, just the sounds of confessed pleasure. The head of Fisk’s cock pushed past that first barrier of muscle and went further in. Oh, Matt missed sex. “Keep going,” he encouraged, giving the man permission when Fisk was taking his time for Matt’s sake. “It’s okay. Please keep going.”

Fisk closed his lips over open teeth and kissed Matt’s neck. He hummed down in his throat as he went further. He did not make it far before pausing to gather himself from overstimulation. “You are as... tight as I remember,” Fisk spoke. “I wasn’t... I wasn’t expecting that.” He did not say why, but Matt could guess.

“Because I gave birth?” Fisk nodded. Sweat from his forehead rubbed against Matt’s shoulder. “That was over a year ago.” Time and disuse worked wonders. Fisk pushed forward. “Mm! ...Ah, and I do exercises.”

Fisk faltered. Apparently, that was intriguing. “Show me.”

Matt smirked. He contracted the muscles around Fisk and the man grunted, not entirely out of pleasure. Matt did not half-ass any exercise. “Too hard?” Fisk would never admit to that. Matt eased up without being told. He clenched with softer pressure, only rousing Fisk, drawing him in with unbreakable promises of pleasure. Matt could feel his insides penetrated deeper than he ever went by himself. “That’s so good,” he praised. It was almost like their very first time together, when Matt was so out of practice that it felt like a new experience. How long ago that was. How long ago so much of it was. Matt had not had sex in over a year, not since Fisk ended it for them. “Mm,” he moaned. “That’s it, Wilson. Oh, that’s what I needed.” Pleasure was not the point of their escapade, but it was a welcome byproduct. The man bottomed out inside of him and held position before he began a cycle of controlled thrusts. Matt allowed the slow pace for acclimation’s sake but soon became dissatisfied. He knew what Fisk was really capable of. “Don’t hold back,” Matt urged. “Ah, hm... Harder. Don’t hold back.”

“You do not tell me what to do,” Fisk growled at him, reiterating his role, playing his part perfectly. Matt felt his skin tingle with a chill. He asked for it, after all. He wanted to do as Fisk said. He wanted to do nothing but react against a will not his own. His command for roughness, however, would not be spurned. Fisk sped up. He pushed harder. He fucked Matt like he wanted to fuck him: as retribution.

“Ah!” God, Fisk was strong. Matt would take the effect of that strength home with him. He would be sore-- but not in a bad way. No, not in a bad way. Fisk knew just how far to take it. And while he hit and scraped the line, he did not cross it, did not break it. “God,” Matt groaned, “hah... hmm.” All he could do was hold on as Fisk pressed him down into the rough sheets. Matt wrapped his legs around the man and pushed his heels into his lower back to hold on. He scraped fingernails over Fisk’s shoulders. A hard thrust and he dug them in. He felt and heard the top layers of skin snap open beneath his puncturing nails. “God, yes!” It was so good. “Mmm, Wilson.”

Fisk brought his knees off the bed, fucking Matt deep as he leaned across his body to kiss him. It was messy and wet, an afterthought and compulsion of savagery. Matt’s hair was pulled between the fingers of a tight fist, once again straddling the line of unbearable pain. He moaned, and groaned, and offered up so many indecent words of praise.

Fisk was quiet as ever. He liked to let Matt do all the talking, senseless as it usually was. He had such admirable control when Matt opted to let go his every inhibition. Fisk ran the show during sex. Their current round was no exception to the dozens before it.

“You cannot... escape me,” Fisk said, “can you, Matthew?” Matt tensed, prepared to defy him, but instead he let the man keep talking. “You did not escape me. I released you,” he reminded, “gave you the freedom you begged me for. I gave that to you. Do you remember?” He did. “You did not steal it or... win it. I allowed your freedom. I gave it to you. But even now... Even now I control it.” He pulled back and rammed inside of Matt, so deep his knot threatened to penetrate. “Say it.”

He would not. Matt escaped him. The only reason Fisk had control now was because Matt set it up. He came up with the idea. He filled out the paperwork. He put himself in the room. In that room, however, he lost his control. Fisk took it back. He took it back as if he never lost it, as if every decision Matt made over the past year was part of a plan, his plan. Matt could not admit to that, yield to that. He shook his head.

“Say it.”

“No.”

Fisk slowed his thrusts, depriving Matt from satisfaction. It was unjustly frustrating. “Say it.”

“Bastard,” Matt hissed.

He wanted to give Fisk control of him, but not every control. His life did not belong to the man simply because Fisk spared it. But Matt also knew he did not get to pick and choose what he surrendered to Fisk. If he gifted select battles to the man, Fisk had nothing from him but permission. Matt had to give it all. That was the point being made.

Matt closed his eyes.

“You let me go,” he surrendered. “I’m free because of you, Wilson.” That was the truth. Matt told the truth back to Fisk. He resigned himself to being a free man whose life was owed and owned. He was alive because Fisk let him go. Every morning Matt awoke since then was a gift. “I’m yours.” It was the conclusion to which all his many words amounted. It was what he and Fisk both thought in the backs of their minds but did not plan to say or force to utter. Every extra day of his life was there because Fisk did not kill him, not because any of Matt’s escape plans worked. Matt’s life was owed to Fisk’s mercy. “I’m yours.” He covered his face with his arm, hiding from that heavy stare which pierced him. “Please move.” Sex was a welcome alternative to shackling words.

Fisk pushed down, fucking himself into Matt as he leaned down to kiss him. It was an effortless task to move Matt’s arm out of the way for it. Matt bit Fisk’s lip as a display of his dwindling options for rebellion. He kept the man’s bottom lip between his teeth, not biting, not drawing blood.

“Ah!” Matt released it when Fisk thrust into him hard, regaining that punishing momentum. “God! Hm...” Matt took deep breaths in and out his mouth. “Damn it. Damn... it.”

“Do you like that?” Fisk said, and Matt decided he liked it better when sex was silent.

“Yes,” Matt exhaled. He did. Damn it, he did.

“Then accept it,” Fisk ordered when he knew Matt wanted to retreat, knew he wanted to end sex and regain his pride. Fisk touched him. He wrapped his fingers around Matt’s cock and closed them, moved them.

“Oh,” Matt moaned. It was a comparatively kinder touch than below. “That’s good.” Matt felt his body relax into the bed. Fisk’s hips worked into his pliant body, rushing, finishing.

“I’m going to knot you, Matthew,” Fisk growled against his cheek. It sounded like a threat, but Matt knew it was coming since the moment he announced his plan to visit. “I’m going to...” He slowed down, trading stimulation for purpose. He took his hand off Matt to plant them both into the mattress above Matt’s shoulders and support himself. Fisk pushed his entire cock up Matt’s ass and did not stop. His knot was full, hard, and determined to own the omega before it. Fisk’s knot was so big. Memory had a funny way of leaving out certain details.

Matt’s lips clenched together in a tight seal as he breathed hard through his nose. It was a loud, gasping sound, perfectly stressing his discomfort. He tried to push through it, but he could not— or rather did not want to make himself.

“Wait, wait,” he interrupted. “Wilson, wait. Wilson. Fisk!” He changed his mind about knotting. “I’m not... God, I’m not used to it anymore.” It was so simple, so natural, before that Matt had not thought to prepare himself better. “Stop, stop... stop. Wilson...”

Matt beat on him with closed fists, but Fisk knocked his hands away.

“Stop,” Matt fought, and his voice lost authority. It became weak and strained. “No, no, no, stop.” He hit at Fisk again, and the man grabbed him. With such abundant strength, he only needed one hand to restrain Matt’s wrists on the pillow above his head. “Stop,” he asked one more time.

“I’m sorry,” Fisk said. He meant it. He kissed the corner of Matt’s lip in apology. “I’m sorry.” But it was not like their first time, when Fisk knotted him for his own lustful desires and a lack of self-control. He carried through with it for Matt’s sake, because it was the point of what they were doing. They had sex to reduce Matt down to a powerless omega who could not fight Fisk and would obey him, do what he said. In that moment, there could truly be no dispute of strength. “There,” Fisk exhaled when he finally pushed inside.

“Ah,” Matt cried, and he clenched his teeth as he took it. The wide knot slipped past him and inside him and most of the pain abated. “Ah.” It slipped into discomfort, and even that his body tried to ignore as Fisk took his cock in hand once more and jerked it with firm fingers and a sweeping thumb over the tip. “Mmm,” Matt moaned despite himself, despite the pressure in his ass, despite the weight on his wrists as Fisk pushed down without concern. Matt was stretched out beneath him, at his mercy, as intended. It was a shame to take pleasure from that. It was disgusting to summon memories from every heat he could remember, images of Fisk treating him just as roughly. And yet Matt felt neither of those negative emotions he was supposed to. With a grunt, he came. Fisk held him through it and kept his hand moving until he was done. “Oh, god. Oh... oh...”

Matt built and built to something that lowered him gently into content exhaustion.

His mind was a momentary haze. He barely registered the twitching member inside him, ejaculating into the condom. He instigated nothing and laid there prone and tired. Fisk remembered the squeezing grip he had on Matt’s wrist. He removed both hands. He laid above him and kept all weight off Matt. Spent sweat beaded on his forehead. Breath stuttered as he caught it. Fisk looked at Matt, studied him. He fumbled for a course of action. “You needed it,” he insisted, speaking in a withdrawn murmur.

“I needed it.” Matt spoke no louder.

A few more seconds were allowed to wade through spent exertion. Then Fisk acted while everything was fresh, barely ended, barely cool.

“You will throw away the costume,” he ordered. “As soon as you return home, get rid of it.”

“Okay.” Matt nodded. In the moment, it was a sound idea. He knew it was the right choice, and his mind felt so open that Fisk’s words were received as the only logic that would be heeded. Matt wanted to do it, to give up being the Devil, to look after their son. He only hoped the ride home did not clear his head.

“If you consider vigilantism any more,” Fisk said, “you will... return here. We will do this again.”

“‘Again’?” Matt silently repeated. He did not chastise Fisk for the presumption. Matt knew when they had sex that it was not the last time. They reopened a door they barely shut the first time. It would happen again. He was unable to doubt it. “Okay,” he agreed.

“Now,” Fisk asked, being allowed to address the personal after the fulfillment of their purpose, “are you all right?” He rolled onto his side, using gently suggestive hands to bring Matt with him.

“You mean with the knotting,” Matt inferred. It was an uncomfortable sensation, but, “I’ll live.”

“I’m sorry,” Fisk said once more, apologizing for his brutish behavior.

Matt shook his head. “We knew it was going to happen,” he said. “I should have prepared better.”

“No,” Fisk denied. He would not be argued with over fault and blame. “No. I promised I wouldn’t hurt you. I did. So,” he stated one last time, “I apologize.”

“Yeah.” Matt nodded, taking that reminder of Fisk’s honor. “Yeah, uh, apology accepted.” He resituated, trying to find a comfortable position when there were none. He settled for the one he found, pushed up against Fisk with his leg over the man’s hip. It made the strain of entry better on them both. “I can’t believe how easily we used to do it,” he remarked. He was insatiable then, wanting Fisk so often and needing all of him. His body accepted the man without a fight, and if they had kept up with it, Matt would still be acclimated. Now, he was a year out of practice.

“Many acts,” Fisk said, “were easier. And they were more difficult.” Throughout those seven months of captivity, they each acknowledged that Matt’s situation was unfortunate. And yet it allowed the development of situations that could not exist in a free and civilized world. It was easier to be locked up, to suspend society-driven behaviors. It was more difficult.

“Yeah. Yeah, they were.”

Matt listened to their breath and heartbeat decline, falling back into the natural rhythm. Fisk’s heart had its own sound, one Matt knew well by now. It played the same song as anyone else but played it on a different instrument. The notes were routine but everything about the sound itself was unique. Matt moved his hand over that performing heart, letting it thump against his fingertips as well as his ears.

“Can I ask you something?” Matt posed. He continued before Fisk could answer, before the man could worry about a looming question. It was nothing serious enough to warrant anxiety. Matt simply wanted an honest answer, one he could not satisfactorily receive from anyone else. “Does he look like me?” he asked, and he hated to ask it. “I can, uh, tell some things— on both of us, me and him— but not enough.” Matt saw Daniel better than he could see himself, and yet neither of those images were ever crystal clear. “Karen and Foggy, they... they’ll go on and on saying how much he looks like me, but...”

“You can’t trust them,” Fisk assumed.

“I think,” Matt said, “if he looked like you... they’d try to keep it from me. Spare my feelings or something.”

Fisk understood. Genetics were a powerful reminder of a man who was meant to be despised. “He’s beautiful,” he said, as if that alone answered Matt’s question. “Wide, round eyes. Full lips. A visible curiosity towards the world at large.” He described attributes he saw in Matt that were mirrored in their son. That was his answer. “Yes, he looks like you, Matthew. Mostly he does, yes. I think his nose, perhaps, is more like mine, though it is... difficult to tell with him being so young. Overall he,” Fisk cleared his throat, “looks less like me now that he has more hair.”

Matt laughed. He was surprised to hear Fisk make a joke, and he laughed. Fisk gave a ghost of a smile. “Yeah, probably so,” Matt replied.

Fisk’s hand came across Matt’s side and up his chest. Fingers traced the scar along his collarbone, reminding them both of violent lifestyles and deadly choices. A life free of pain sounded so tempting, so sweet. It sounded lonely to surrender to it without company.

“Do you ever, uh, think about another life?” Matt asked, knowing he had to be more specific. “One where I’m not the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. You don’t run a- a crime syndicate. We’re just men.” The description was so humbling to them both, crippling to their potential. It sacrificed everything they were capable of for something so mundane as romance, a family.

In a whisper, Fisk admitted, “It is an... exceedingly easy act to commit... like breathing.” In each of them, that aching concept had become second-nature. It was an intrusive thought which might never go away.

Matt put his hand on Fisk’s cheek. He rubbed the soft skin that leaned into his touch. “It feels self-sabotaging,” he said. He wanted to add that it was not fair, but they did not live in a world that was fair. They never had. And now they lived within a situation of their own making. They did it to each other and themselves. The idea was unpleasant.

“I almost forgot,” Fisk said. “You like to talk while we... knot. I almost forgot that.”

“Say the word and I’ll shut up,” Matt offered.

Fisk did not give the order. Perhaps he enjoyed hearing Matt talk, or perhaps he wanted to appear indifferent.

His hand wandered indulgently over Matt’s body, over his flat stomach, now hard with reimagined muscle. “I liked you pregnant,” he said, verbalizing the very obvious thoughts he entertained.

“I didn’t,” Matt replied with a faint smile. “But I might... do it again someday. Not for my sake, necessarily, but for his. I was an only child growing up. I used to think about how some things might have been easier with company.”

“Yes,” Fisk agreed in a daze. From the small amounts Matt had been given of the man’s past, he knew it was hard, and he knew it was lonely. “That sounds good for him... someday.” Fisk’s short fingernails raked featherlight up and down Matt’s arm, almost a tickle. “Accept my money and my aid,” he implored. He wanted to help.

“Mm,” Matt shook his head, “I can’t. I can be idle, maybe. I can... put my faith in the police, in others who might step up. I can’t profit from the evil of this city.” It was the expected answer.

“You know my offer won’t expire,” Fisk told him.

“I know, Wilson.” He could do anything to the man, say anything, but Fisk would always make certain his son was taken care of. He was a good father. Matt exhaled and patted Fisk’s chest. “This is nice,” he said. “The sex, I mean. God, I’ve missed sex. We went from having it almost every day to...” He sighed. “I’ve missed sex.”

“There’s been no one else since...?” Fisk could not stop himself from asking, but he managed to cut the question short.

“I’ve been on dates,” Matt said, “a few women... one man.” Fisk’s grip tightened around his arm. At times, he was a jealous man. “We didn’t make it past dinner,” Matt added with no idea why he put possessive concerns to rest. “Apparently, having a kid is a turnoff. Who knew?” He let his finger tap against Fisk’s chest. He felt pensive, perhaps pessimistic. “We didn’t even get to the circumstances involved: you and... everything that happened. I don’t think I can ever tell someone. Any relationship I have is probably doomed because of it. Maybe I shouldn’t even try.”

There was a good chance Matt was telling Fisk exactly what he wanted to hear. He could be with no one else, not unless he trusted them with the secret or kept it from them. It was an unfortunate rumination and a damning secret, but imprisonment made Fisk seem weaker, powerless. Matt felt like he could speak his most shameful secrets with no worry of reprisal.

“I cannot... offer words of encouragement or advice,” Fisk murmured, and he was noticeably ashamed over that fact.

“I know.” He was not going to say anything that might inspire Matt to date. It was not entirely selfish. Matt knew Fisk preferred his attentions on their son. He knew Fisk would not want strangers around Daniel. Matt had a job to do. He had protection to ensure. Self-defense was the only violence allowed to Matt, and even then, he should not invite its opportunity. “Were you ever going to kidnap Daniel?” Fisk specialized in elaborate plans. Matt needed to know he was not a part of one. He needed to know it was his own idea and decision to submit to Fisk, have sex with Fisk. He needed to know.

“Yes.” It remained a bold and enraging concept and yet Matt was relieved to hear it. “And I will,” Fisk threatened once more, “to protect my son, even if that means... protecting him from you.”

“So I’m the villain?” It was how Fisk made him sound. “I don’t endanger him, Wilson.”

“You endanger yourself,” Fisk asserted, “which in turn jeopardizes his expected lifestyle.” He paused, knowing what he said next would not be well received. “How can you not empathize,” he asked, “after the risk your own father took, after the life it left you?”

“Stop.”

“And you,” he pressed on, “without even the payoff of a reckless wager to support your son.”

“Don’t talk about my father.” Matt opened his life and his son’s life up to discussion with Fisk; however, there were restricted subjects.

“Don’t repeat his mistake,” Fisk demanded. “You said yourself, to me in your own words, you said you would rather have him back than the money he left you. When you die— _when_ — how do I explain to your son that what you did wasn’t even for him?”

“You’re twisting it.” Fisk distorted all the good Matt did and why he did it.

“And so are you,” he accused.

Matt opened his mouth to argue but had no strong, cutting words to throw back. As he saw only the good, Fisk saw only the consequences. Neither of them was absolutely incorrect, which meant Matt did not get to say he was right.

“I worry,” Fisk admitted, giving Matt his perspective, forcing his outlook upon him, as asked. “I didn’t,” he continued. “I know that... physically... you are more than capable of taking care of him.” Fisk knew Matt’s blindness did not impair him. “I didn’t worry. Through everything— the arrest, the trial, imprisonment— I never had to worry about him. It was one less concern.” Fisk put so much faith in Matt to do the right thing. All he was left with was the matter of his own wellbeing. He never doubted Matt. “That was until—” he huffed an irritated sigh— “I received word of what you were doing, what you... resumed doing.” Matt could imagine the violent, destructive fury within that moment of discovery. “Make no mistake, Matthew,” he said, “it ends one way. Therefore, you will stop this... and I won’t have to worry about you both. My hand will not be extended. Not one thought will be spared.” Fisk worried about Daniel. He worried about Matt. He thought about their safety but would not interfere in their lives— not unless the first required intervention by the second.

“You don’t want me dead?” It was an outlandish concept Matt might never completely wrap his head around.

“If I wanted you dead,” Fisk replied, “you would be dead, Matthew... a hundred times over.”

“Why haven’t you followed through?” There was a cowardly answer to Matt’s question, the repeated assertion that it was all for Daniel. Matt only lived to take care of Daniel. He wanted Fisk to be more brave than that stance. “Why am I not dead, Wilson?”

Fisk did not want to answer. He knew Matt would not accept the standing excuse. It was a blunt question that demanded new words. Fisk did not want to say them.

“Sometimes I act... rashly.” The consequences in that implication could range anywhere from an unkind word to murder. The situations for Fisk’s temper were diverse. “And yet I rarely feel regret afterward. But there are some... acts that cannot be taken back, some which require a second thought before committing to their- their permanency. One day there will be a world without you, Matthew, a place where you are not. I do not want to live in it... and I do not want its creation to be of my own making.” It was that same realization which spared his life a year ago. Fisk could not kill Matt. He could not even let Matt kill himself. “I won’t... live in it.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Matt questioned, but Fisk would not elaborate. His silence fed horrid imagination and welded bars back over Matt’s freedom. The man was so capable of extremes. It was not unthinkable to picture him kidnapping two people for their own best interest. “I won’t go back.” Matt’s pulse quickened at the mere thought of four immovable brick walls.

Fisk did not reject the radical concept. He did not comment on it one way or the other, denial or confirmation. “You should take better responsibility of your freedom.”

“By doing what you say?”

“Yes.” Fisk was convinced his way was best, and Matt was no longer certain he could make a good case against it. “Be more responsible. Do it or Daniel loses his father.” There was no future where Matt’s hazardous risks did not end him. He used to not care if it happened. He was not afraid. He was arrogant. Everything seemed less important then. There were no consequences. Now there were many, with one large responsibility at their helm. Fisk did not want their son lost, a virtual orphan.

It went against every instinct Matt had for him to admit, “You’re still his father, Wilson.” It was true. “And you’re good at it.” He was. Despite distance and lack of acquaintance, he was. “Bad at everything else,” Matt chuckled, “but, uh... pretty good at that.”

“You be his father, Matthew.” He did not tell Matt to be the best one or even a good one. He expected nothing but an effort, a constant presence. “It’s what you wanted. It’s what I gave you.” Fisk could have kept fatherhood for himself. Only one of them could have it, and he surrendered that precious gift to Matt. “Don’t waste it.”

Matt kissed him. Action was easier than words, whether they spoke acknowledgement or argument. He kissed him. And when they pulled apart, Matt told Fisk what he had every right to know: “You’re not your father, Wilson.” He was so much better than him. Matt knew that without even having the full story of Fisk’s childhood. “Daniel is luckier than you were, and you, uh... deserve someone telling you that.”

“Thank you, Matthew.” That was all the comment Fisk gave upon the subject.

“I think you’re done.” Matt remembered how long it used to take Fisk to finish before pulling out. He felt a smaller and expended knot inside him.

Fisk nodded and rolled Matt onto his back again. “Hold still,” he instructed. “I’ll try to go easy.” He would try to be gentle, but that word was too sweet. Matt grasped it from the undertones of speech. Fisk pulled out slowly.

“Hm,” Matt grunted. “Ah... damn it.” Fisk’s knot was always smaller coming out. Matt felt no unmanageable discomfort. “I’m okay,” he said when it was over. He was empty and exhausted, but he would be fine. Mostly, Matt was thankful for the moderately clean feeling he received from Fisk using a condom. It was better than the usual filth. There was only what he himself spent.

Fisk tied off the condom and Matt tried to sit up and get dressed. A forceful hand came down on his chest and kept him in bed. “Stay,” Fisk told him. “Give yourself a moment to recover.” It sounded like a great idea with no sane reason for defiance.

Matt trailed his hands over his chest and up Fisk’s arm. He pulled the man back down beside him. Fisk went without a fight. Matt turned onto his side and pressed himself close to the warm body next to him.

“Foggy would kill me if he knew where I was and what I was doing,” Matt spoke. His face was turned straight ahead, looking sightlessly at Fisk’s bare chest. “He doesn’t understand. He never will. I can... tell him. I can say what we were. I can say that I talked to almost no one else but you for seven months. But he’ll never understand.”

Fisk held Matt’s hand. He moved it slowly back and forth in a lazy sway. He kissed the back of it. “I was there,” he said. “I feel as you do. But I do not understand it. There are parts of me which hate you so deeply, Matthew. I want to... make you pay for all that you have done, all that you have said. I want you... hurt, beaten, stopped.” Matt tensed in his arms, but Fisk pulled him closer. “And yet those emotions, despite their ferocity, are weaker than all else I feel, though I have no name for what that might be.”

“Yes,” Matt agreed. It was the exact feeling he had, the exact same complicated, unnamed feeling. It was as strong and vibrant as every other relationship in his life. It was freakish and wrong.

They said nothing more for several minutes, not until Fisk commented on the clock he had been watching, waiting for its signal. “You have five minutes,” he announced. “You should get dressed.” With no added gestures or words, Fisk let go of Matt and got out of bed. He collected his clothes and began putting them on.

Matt rolled onto his back and continued laying there. “When I leave,” he said, “I’ll start thinking about what we just did.”

“You don’t want to leave.” It was not the point Matt made, but it supported what he said.

“No.” Matt understood and empathized with every past instance when Fisk did not immediately leave his cell a year ago. It was easier to stay in a place where time and guilt were suspended. “No, maybe not.”

“Get up, Matthew,” Fisk told him. He stepped into his prison jumpsuit. “Get dressed and go home. Throw away your silly costume.”

Matt sat up with all the enthusiasm of a child going to school on Monday morning. He found each piece of his clothing and tossed them in a pile on the bed.

There was a small adjoining bathroom with a shower, but Matt doubted its cleanliness and did not want to use it. He resigned himself to a quick whore’s bath in the sink, just enough to wash away his own ejaculate. “Guess I’ll go home smelling like sex.” He pulled on his boxers.

“You weren’t in heat,” Fisk replied. The buttons of his jumpsuit snapped closed beneath his fingers. “The effect is less. Most likely no one but you will pick up on it.”

Fisk was on his skin and in his clothes. Matt smelled the man all over himself. It was a disturbing and intrusive thought to say he would miss the scent when it was gone. Too easily could Matt imagine folding up his shirt and keeping it in a bag, preserving it. Some part of him wanted to do it, and for that very reason, he would not. Matt tucked his shirt into his pants. He would wash them both when he got home.

“I can’t imagine what the guards... what the warden must think of your visit,” Fisk spoke. Matt wanted to continue on that track and somehow discern what the man’s lawyer was thinking of it as well. He did not.

“I’m an omega,” Matt said. “They blame it on that.” He did not know for certain, but he could guess at their thoughts. “Weak, hormonal... single-mindedly returning where I belong.”

“I would... maim the man suicidal enough to say it out loud,” Fisk swore, “so that even his closest friend would not know him to see him.” His words were violent, but they were kind to their intended. The respect he harbored for Matt would not wither, even though he was proven capable of turning those great threats unto him.

“It’s okay,” Matt assured. “It isn’t the first time I’ve let people make assumptions about me. It won’t be the last.” With the life he led, false conclusions were oftentimes his greatest asset. He was underestimated. It was a good thing. Matt pushed his hands through his hair, trying to find order and only guessing that he managed it. “I’m glad we talked,” he said. He genuinely was. Shame at what they did held hands with the relief he received, the slipping separation of convictions.

“And did it accomplish anything?” Fisk inquired.

Matt thought before he spoke. He did not rush into the answer Fisk wanted to hear simply for the sake of saying it. But at the end of deliberation, there was no better reply than, “Maybe.” He would not know until tested. “I think so. I hope so.”

“Throw away the costume,” Fisk ordered one last time. “Keep busy with your work. Help the helpless on paper, in a courtroom, in a- a safe way, a legal... way, one which pays the bills.” He put a great amount of pressure on Matt to behave as expected and provide for their son as was promised.

“I think,” Matt said, contemplating as he spoke, “I think maybe I’m ready to be one man. I think I want to try.” Heroism had split him for two years, creating Matt Murdock and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. It was time to stop thinking he could have both to their fullest extent. He was one man, and attempting to be two made him horrible at each. It was time to put one down. “I’m gonna try,” he told Fisk. “I think, uh... Yeah, I think I’m finally ready to be a father.”

“None of it was ever planned,” Fisk said, acknowledging the original mistake they made and all the ones in between. Matt was not supposed to get pregnant. Matt was not supposed to live after that pregnancy. It was all taken one day at a time, all the way up until their current breath. “I know it isn’t what you expected at such a young age.” Matt told him as much before. He was not ready for a child when he had one. His former lifestyle was built around that exclusion. “I know when you... imagined an eventual future with children, you most likely were not doing it alone.” Fisk circled around and around with excusing speech until he hit the nail on the head.

“There have been... times,” Matt admitted, “when I wished none of it ever happened.” He truly meant all of it, every aspect, including their son, and that was a guilt he could barely stomach sometimes. “I have my friends, but, overall, it’s a lot for one person. When he... When he won’t stop crying... When he stops breathing in his sleep and it wakes me up... When I can’t go out drinking... When he won’t eat or just- just _do_  what I _say_ , it—” Matt’s voice quit. He cleared his throat. “It’s hard,” he said. “It’s hard. But then the moment clears, goes away, and I find myself thinking, ‘Yeah... I’d do it again.’” He meant all of it, every aspect. Matt gave a weak smile of assurance.

Fisk was satisfied by his conclusion. “I am sorry for putting you in that situation.” He apologized to Matt the day it happened, and through it all, he never once denied his guilt.

“I’m not.” It took Matt a long time to get there. “I love him, Wilson.” He absolutely did. “I love our son.” He shared possession of him with Fisk. “It’s why I came here today. And it’s how I’m gonna leave here and try my best. You’re right. You are. I... I need to let the crime fighting go. I need to be a father. I do. And maybe now I’m ready for it.” Matt was getting a late start, but it was better now than never.

“Then I will... try not to worry,” Fisk told him. He had to trust Matt to do the right thing. It was a repetition of the faith that made Fisk free him a year prior. He needed it to be the one facet of his life he did not have to constantly monitor. Matt almost wanted to pursue different shades of recklessness to distract the man from crime. “But if I hear word of a man in a mask...”

“Then I’ll be back for a refresher course,” Matt said. “Yeah, I think I got it.”

Fisk sighed. “I don’t like threatening you,” he said.

“I thought they were ultimatums.” Matt cut his defiance short before it turned into an argument. He nodded his head and stared sightlessly around Fisk’s shoulder. “I know you don’t. You’d rather not have to think about us.”

“Thinking... about you,” Fisk said, “and worrying about you are two distinctive tasks, Matthew.” One overlapped the other. Concern rested within consideration. But omission of the first did not mean absence of the second. He was in Fisk’s thoughts. He might never leave.

“Yeah.” They shared that affliction, that madness.

Matt took three steps of the four between them. Fisk covered the last. The kiss was so tender. It was needy and desperate and yet never turned into anything heavier than a want to touch and express unfortunate affection. Time dwindled down in that kiss. If they were not so limited, there was no telling how long it might have gone on. It went until they made themselves end it.

“This isn’t healthy,” Matt whispered. He remained close. His lips nearly touched Fisk’s with each uttered syllable.

“No,” Fisk agreed, just as quietly.

It was wrong. What they had was bad for them in so many ways, unlimited ways. Because they met, Matt was surrendering his dedication to the public. Fisk was in prison. They needed to go far away and forget each other. For their own good, they needed that.

Matt took a step back, just enough to separate their bodies. “I could come back,” he said. Fisk was not opposed to the idea until Matt added, “I could bring him.”

“No.”

“I know you want to see him.”

“Yes,” Fisk confirmed. Of course he did. “But not like this.”

“These rooms are for more than sex,” Matt said. “Fam-Families can visit.” He was almost unable to get the word out, but it was the simplest term to use. It was the term spelled out in the prison’s guidelines. “It would be best to do it now,” he reasoned, “before he starts remembering things.”

“No.”

He was lying. It was difficult to tell the truth when desire so fiercely contradicted spoken words and dutiful integrity.

Matt approached Fisk again. He let his hands fuss over the collar of the man’s prison uniform, repeatedly straightening the cheap, wrinkled cotton. “Tell me again,” he said in a soft voice that demanded honesty. “Tell me not to bring him, Wilson. Tell me one more time and I never will.”

Fisk was silent.

He was silent.

He said nothing. He left open a door he might never walk through, but he did not have the heart or the strength to close it.

Matt slipped his fingers from Fisk and let them fall down to rest at his sides. “You know how to get in touch with me.” Fisk would circumvent any barrier between himself and Matt, overcome every restraining order that was supposed to stand in his way. He could send a letter. He could call on the phone. Contacting Matt was as easy as it was difficult. Resources bridged every gap that courage could not walk across. And yet Matt kept the option open for him. “If it’s something important,” he said, “I know you can.”

“Yes,” Fisk agreed. He nodded his head. “If it’s... If it’s something important.” Fisk backed away from Matt and grabbed the nearly forgotten glasses from the table. He unfolded them and pushed the red lenses over Matt’s eyes. He rested the frames over his ears. “Go home.” Fisk let his hand slip down to rest on Matt’s shoulder. “Love him. Hold him. Kiss him.” Fisk was restrained from most pleasures of fatherhood. He tasked Matt to do them in his stead— for him.

“Okay.” Matt nodded his head and Fisk took away his hand, severing all contact between them. “Goodbye, Wilson.”

“Goodbye, Matthew.”

Matt knocked on the outside door and a moment later, it opened for him.

He left. He picked up Daniel, gave him a hug, a kiss. They went home.

In a locked trunk in the bottom of a locked closet sat Matt’s secret, burning away at him like guilt. It was difficult to feel any more pride or validation from what he did. It was hypocritical to risk the life of his son’s father when he would give anything to have his own back. Daniel had to come first. Fisk was right. He was right. Daniel would come first.

Matt threw away his costume. He tossed it in a garbage bag and tied it tight. He told himself not to buy a new one.

He would be a father. He was ready to give it his all.

With a large smile, Matt turned away from the storage closet and said, “You ready for dinner?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> smh at these two idiots who don’t realize what they feel is... probably... love. But they also hate each other. So that... complicates things.
> 
> Now I want to write Matt bringing the kid for a visit. Will this never end? But no. This is all I’ll be writing for Matt and Fisk. For a little while. Not forever. I’m sure the rest of The Defenders (I’m on episode 5) and Daredevil S3 will give me the itch again.
> 
> Matt will be back once he realizes Fisk poked a hole in the condom before he got there... I’m kidding! Although pregnancy is a much more solid plan for Matt living less dangerously... I’m kidding...
> 
> I highly encourage everyone interested in this ship to PLEASE take up my mantle and write your own fics. Really boost the numbers. I’d like to read them. Go forth!


End file.
